


Interlude VII

by hoc_voluerunt



Series: SPQR [15]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient Rome, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7211540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoc_voluerunt/pseuds/hoc_voluerunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rude surprise awaits at the via Pistoris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude VII

**Author's Note:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text, or in [this post](http://hoc-voluerunt.livejournal.com/39859.html).

            “I'm only saying,” Vannus remarked, straight-faced, as they ambled home from the horse-dealer's, “I did pay for everything in Ostia. The bath, care for the horses, wine, food –”

            “Ah, but I paid for the room, didn't I?” Celatus countered, smirking where he thought Vannus couldn't see from the half-step behind him at which he walked. “And I didn't eat any of the food.”

            “You _should_ have.”

            “I didn't have any coin on me, in any case,” Celatus went on, as they turned the corner onto the via Pistoris. “I _couldn't_ pay for the horses.”

            “Suppose I grant you that,” Vannus shrugged. “I may end up mysteriously short of coin next time I get my boots fixed,” he said, and looked down at his shoes, wriggling his toes, as they walked. “They could do with re-soling. Think of it as a gift.”

            Celatus was slowing to a halt as they neared CCXXIB, not listening to Vannus, who tipped up one corner of his mouth and ducked around to try to catch Celatus' eye.

            “You know,” he said, “a gift? It must be somewhere in there with all that knowledge of bloodstains and woodfire ashes. Something you give to someone you like without expecting –”

            “Stop.”

            There was a curious quality to Celatus' voice: a hollowness which spoke of something much more dire than irritation – whether or not it masked fondness – at the teasing. His expression was an unreadable blank, and his eyes seemed somehow dull. He had stopped walking, just in front of their building, in the middle of the street. Vannus frowned, and twisted on his feet to try to follow Celatus' empty gaze.

            “Oh, gods above and below...”

            On the outer wall of their building, someone had painted a pair of crude figures, half the size of life, but exactly at eye level. One of the figures had short, fair hair, and a farcically large penis, erect and poking out from under its tunic. Before it knelt a man with dark, curly hair and a toga, with its mouth open wide and ready. They were labelled, in case the subtext was missed: _BRITANNUS_ , standing before _CORNELIUS IRRUMATUS._ Vannus thought he heard a snicker from behind them.

            The pair of them had gone still, almost as frozen as the figures meant to represent them on the wall: Vannus' feet were still a little out of order from his turn, his thumb still tucked into his belt, and Celatus' toga rested where it had fallen after their walk, always a little too energetic for such stately dress, hanging almost precariously from his shoulder and arm, a stray corner brushing the street. Vannus ran his tongue over his teeth, behind his bottom lip, then pressed his mouth shut, and swallowed.

 _“ Age,”_ he muttered, “let's go inside. We'll have it cleaned off tonight. It doesn't matter.”

            Slipping imperceptibly into movement, Vannus marched across the road towards the entry, head down; but behind him, Celatus' eyes had focused on something else with a foreboding gleam, and his stooping neck and slow step broke Vannus' smooth attempt at retreat.

            “What is it,” he snapped under his breath, “just leave it. Come inside.”

            Celatus was pulling a curled slip of lead, which echoed the light in his eyes, from a crack in the bricks low down on the wall, under the obscene painting.

            “It's just a curse,” Vannus grumbled, but he was interrupted by Celatus' murmuring voice.

            “It wasn't here when we left.”

            Vannus rolled his eyes and stepped back towards the street. “And we've been gone for days, anyone could have left it there when we were away, it doesn't mean anything – come _inside.”_ With that, he gripped Celatus' arm and pulled, to haul the man along behind him and into the blessedly empty courtyard. Celatus didn't protest, but he also didn't drop the lead in his hand, but instead tucked it away under his toga. Then Vannus was spinning around and stepping close, keeping Celatus face-to-face. His voice, when he spoke again, was low and tight.

            “It means nothing,” he said. Celatus' face was still blank.

            “Easy for you to say,” he replied, eyeing Vannus over the bridge of his nose, “you're not the one being face-fucked on our apartment wall.”

_“That –”_

            Vannus cut himself off by flattening his mouth and breathing over it – out, in, out – in sharp hisses through his nose. His hands had become fists at his sides, and for just a moment, he avoided Celatus' gaze.

            “That doesn't matter,” he eventually forced out, each syllable carefully clipped out. “It's just – a stupid joke, you know what gossips are like.” His smile was brief, small, and very taut. “Nothing better to do. We'll clean it off and everyone will forget about it by the ides.”

            One eyebrow of Celatus' arched up, a rebuke down at his friend.

            “That won't stop it being true.”

            Vannus' hands opened and closed, once, simultaneously, a spreading and clasping of tense fingers and palms.

            “That's not how it happened,” he said, looking away.

            “Isn't it?” Celatus asked, and Vannus resisted the urge to punch him.

 _“I told you not to,”_ he hissed, leaning even closer, and risked a glance up at Celatus' eyes. “I said you didn't have to do it and you did it anyway, you said you wanted to – it doesn't mean anything.” Celatus' other brow matched the first, twin peaks of disdainful surprise. _“The graffiti,”_ Vannus clarified with a growl. “Look – that doesn't matter, anyway. No one can possibly actually _know.”_

            “But someone clearly suspects,” Celatus returned, and Vannus let out a strangled, incredulous laugh.

 _“Suspects?”_ he repeated. “Half the vigiles suspect you're a remorseless murderer, suspicions don't mean a thing!”

            “Vannus –”

            “We're ignoring this,” Vannus said with a nod, as if that concluded matters. “It doesn't mean anyone knows, and if they did, that doesn't matter, it's none of their business what happened _one time_ in a villa outside _Arretium.”_ With a heavy breath, his eyes fell shut, and his shoulders dropped, as if all the strength had been sapped from him like air from a child's playing ball stuck with a knife. His fists opened and his head bowed again, and after a moment, he lifted his hands to press them against the outsides of Celatus' forearms, holding him in place.

            “It doesn't matter,” he repeated, more solemn than before, as if he were saying something else entirely. He'd raised his face to Celatus', and could see something there – in the fall of his eyebrows, or the curve of his nose, or the angle of his eyes, or the shape of his lips – which caused him to step forward, and tuck his head to one side so he could kiss Celatus' cheek, down at his jaw, where he could reach without stretching his neck or rising up on his toes. “It changes nothing,” he finished; then turned on his feet and stepped off towards the house, and the stairs to their rooms above. Over his shoulder, he tossed one final call, to beckon Celatus to follow: “I'm still making you pay for my boots.”

            As Celatus let out a slow sigh, and his own shoulders relaxed by just a fraction, he clearly resolved to follow. Before he did, however, he drew the little sheet of lead from the wall out of the folds of his toga and carefully unrolled it. Scratched into the inside surface in large, Latin letters, were two, neat words:

 

_ NUNC FERS_

**Author's Note:**

> Can one put a warning for fucked-up historical mores about sex/sexuality? I tagged it with "period-typical homophobia", but that's not really accurate. Hm.


End file.
